Boeing's Launch Schedule Hit by Impending Union Strike

Boeing aerospace workers
across the country are preparing to strike next week, a move that would halt
the company's Delta rocket launch schedule at Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg Air
Force Base.

The planned November 7
launch of NASA's CloudSat
and CALIPSO environmental satellites has already been impacted by the
battle between Boeing and its workforce. The two spacecraft were supposed to
move from a processing building to the launch pad for attachment atop a Delta 2
rocket earlier this week, but officials scrubbed those plans due to the looming
strike.

NASA said it didn't want
the satellites sitting on Vandenberg's Space Launch Complex-2 West pad if
technicians went on strike.

Other launches facing
uncertainty are the commercial Delta 4 rocket from Cape Canaveral with the
civilian GOES-N weather satellite and an Air Force mission using a Delta 4 from
Vandenberg with a classified spy satellite. Both missions have been encountered
significant delays for technical problems.

The International
Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers voted to reject Boeing's latest
contract offering. Union leaders cited the lack of retiree medical benefits for
new employees, vacation and insurance costs as unacceptable parts of the
proposed contract.

"Perhaps all our brothers
and sisters at the launch sites should start sharing that information with the
launch customers, NASA, NRO, U.S. Air Force, etc.," a posting on the
union's Web site says. "They might want to know how long their launches
are going to slip!"

"The IAM informed us
that our employees who they represent rejected our contract offer," a
Boeing statement said. "We are open to any ideas that the union might
bring to us to come to an agreement, however we feel we have given them the
best offer we possibly can."

The union includes 365
workers at Boeing's Huntington Beach facility, 288 at Cape Canaveral and 100 at
Vandenberg.

The workers are critical to
launch activities, meaning their strike would prevent any liftoffs from
occurring, Boeing said.